


Suffer Well

by theLiterator



Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Duelling, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Incest, Love, M/M, No Romance, Pseudo-Incest, Swordfighting, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-17
Updated: 2015-03-17
Packaged: 2018-03-18 08:37:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,887
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3563222
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theLiterator/pseuds/theLiterator
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's time for Dick to meet his lover's mother.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Suffer Well

**Author's Note:**

  * For [allourheroes](https://archiveofourown.org/users/allourheroes/gifts).



> I know you were probably picturing something a lot more light-hearted, but this is what came out. Thanks for being awesome, and feel free to request something else!

So Dick hadn't really wanted to tell anyone about them, and he was pretty sure there wasn't anyone in particular that Damian would want to tell, so they’d kept their relationship fairly quiet. Damian probably assumed everyone knew, but Dick had taken great pains to make sure that wasn't the case.

This was why, when the ninjas all swarmed up to him on the street in daylight, he wasn't ready for them. At all.

When he woke up, Damian was slumped, shirtless, in the seat next to him. They were mid-air, somewhere over a sea of featureless clouds, in a private jet.

They were alone in the cabin, which was not reassuring at all.

“Damian?” he whispered.

“Mother?” Damian murmured sleepily. He only ever got truly sleepy when he’d been drugged, and Dick tried to tamp down how much he enjoyed the experience. It was a little creepy, even considering everything else about their relationship.

“Not here, D,” Dick said. “Just me.”

Damian pulled himself out of his drugged haze with a visible effort, and then he unlatched his seatbelt and climbed across Dick’s lap to poke at the door to the cockpit.

“What happened?” he demanded, and Dick shrugged, standing up himself and stretching leisurely.

“Ninjas,” he said after a moment. “I don’t know, I got nabbed almost as soon as I noticed them.”

“You didn’t eliminate _any_ opponents?” Damian asked. “That’s not going to go well,” he murmured.

“What? How do you mean?”

“I think Mother has kidnapped us,” Damian said. “I managed to take out only seven of my assailants, and you’ve managed to defend yourself not at all.”

“You’re barefoot,” Dick pointed out. “And wearing bermuda shorts.” He rather thought ‘only’ seven wasn’t the best way to put that.

Damian looked down at himself then back at Dick, already scowling. “I will change when we arrive,” he sneered. “You needn’t worry.”

“O-kay then,” Dick said, “Come here.” Damian glared daggers at him, but after a moment, two, he carefully slid into Dick’s personal space, body language still furious and frightened, but close enough for comforting.

Dick wrapped him in a hug and pressed a couple of secret kisses into his hair, which was getting long again. Damian wasn’t really sure how closely he wanted to resemble the perfect soldier on a given day, so sometimes he would go months without even a trim, and sometimes a buzz cut became a part of his weekly routine.

“You seem to suspect something is going on here. Wanna share?” he asked, rocking slightly. He knew he could only get away with that because Damian hadn’t realized that it was a gesture meant to sooth _infants_ , and Dick secretly dreaded the day figured figured it out. Or maybe he wouldn’t until he was like, 50, and Dick was dead, so Damian couldn’t kill him.

“Mother says Grandfather wants to meet you,” Damian said haltingly into Dick’s neck. “I’ve put her off, but she’s obviously quite insistent.”

“Obviously,” Dick said, instead of a myriad of other things he knew he could never voice, like: you’re in contact with Talia? how long? why? “But I’ve met him before.”

Damian extracted himself from Dick’s arms and blinked at him, long lashes just as entrancing as they’d always been. “Things have changed.”

And that was exactly true, wasn’t it? Dick had grown up-- _Damian_ had grown up and transformed from the tiny distillation of all the worst parts of his upbringing into a stunning, clever teenager with all the ethics and convictions of his father and all the charm and sharpness of his mother. (Dick hadn’t stood a chance.)

Before Dick could muster an appropriate response, the intercom crackled loudly to life, and Damian didn’t startle, but he did slip back to the divider between the cabin and the cockpit, a stolid determination to his expression that was as familiar to Dick as his own voice. He resisted the urge to roll his eyes, and by Damian’s scowl, failed utterly.

“Sirs, we hope you find the accommodations to your taste. For our safety, any attempt to tamper with the door between cockpit and cabin will result in emergency measures and the plane will crash. Amenities can be found in the cabinet to your left, my lord Damian, and there are bathing facilities to the rear. Thank you for your consideration, and have a pleasant flight.”

Dick raised an eyebrow at ‘my lord Damian,’ but Damian had already flung open the cabinet they’d mentioned and started rifling through the contents there. Dick leaned forward and grabbed a packet of peanuts, opening it and handing it to Damian.

“Eat,” he said. Damian scowled at him.

“And if it’s poisoned?” he demanded. “We can trust _no_ food my mother has provided us.”

Dick felt a pang at that reminder of Damian’s childhood, but he didn’t allow his easy grin to even falter-- he had a lot of practice. “Then you die with a full stomach. Eat, you’re getting cranky.”

Furious, Damian seized the peanuts and poured a handful out, which he ate neatly. Dick found clothing in both of their sizes, even though he wasn’t quite sure how some of it was meant to work. Damian could show him later, he thought; likely he’d insist on a shower before redressing. He was particularly fastidious about such things.

“I wasn’t cranky,” Damian said sullenly, though he had opened up another packet of peanuts and was eating them more slowly.

“I like you cranky,” Dick said equably, “So it’s not like it’s a problem if you are.”

“You like _everyone_ ,” Damian spat. “It’s embarrassing.”

“Mmhmm,” Dick replied. “You want to shower now, or do you want to try and guess how long we have before our descent and cut it close?”

Normally, normally, Damian was all about tight scheduling, but he paled uncharacteristically and darted towards the bathing facility.

Dick followed him at a more sedate pace, smiling at the back of Damian's head.

The shower was already running when Dick slipped into the room behind Damian, and he felt no qualms about enjoying the view as Damian shimmied out of the board shorts and stood for a second, waiting.

"You go first," Damian snapped, taking a step back and whirling to face Dick. When he saw that Dick was still wearing the tshirt with its hole in it and hadn’t even unbuttoned his jeans, he scoffed and reached for his clothes.

Dick let Damian get him naked and draw him into the shower, and he let Damian pull him down for surprisingly gentle kisses.

_Uncharacteristically _gentle kisses. Damian’s mouth was the same, familiar warmth against his, but there was no bite, no _violence,_ and Dick pulled away.__

__“You going to tell me what’s going on?” Dick asked, and Damian put a bit of space between them, as much as the tiny shower cubicle allowed. This close, it was obvious that Damian had surpassed Dick’s height, that his shoulders were broader, even considering how lean he was. When he finished burning every calorie he took in on growing _up_ , he’d fill out to Bruce’s size for certain._ _

__“You are my partner,” Damian said, then bit his lip against further information. The tell was unusual, and Dick was stuck trying to decide if it was genuine or a delaying tactic for several long moments._ _

__He wondered how long the shower would last; there had to be a finite amount of water on board._ _

__“I am,” Dick said, because that was a fundamental truth of his existence, and because he knew what Damian _meant_ when he said it._ _

__“Mother and Grandfather will want to… decide if you are a worthy one,” Damian said finally._ _

__“And?” Dick said. Damian had never been this concerned about his mother’s approval before._ _

__“I don’t want you to die,” Damian said quietly. “I would not like that.”_ _

__“Hmm,” Dick said, resting his fingers against Damian’s cheek. “I’ll always come back for you,” he said instead of everything else he wanted to say to him. “But I don’t think they’ll kill me; B likes me too much. They wouldn’t risk his wrath.”_ _

__Damian nodded, and his mood lightened slightly, which meant that pronouncement had worked better than Dick had expected it to._ _

__“Can I wash your hair?” Dick asked._ _

__Damian grunted acknowledgement and turned, and Dick couldn’t resist resting his hand against Damian’s shoulders for a moment. Putting his back to someone was normally anathema to him, but he _trusted_ Dick, and Dick would never stop marvelling at that._ _

__***_ _

__The clothes they’d been given were armored and padded and had buckles and ties in odd places, and while Damian dressed with seeming fluidity, Dick could see the minute hesitation where his fingers struggled to remember the proper way to lace the sleeves, and he thought, _good_ , because that meant Damian wasn’t theirs anymore._ _

__It did nothing to quell the surge of overprotectiveness he felt at seeing Damian dressed like a killer, hair incongruously damp and curling, eyes narrow and cold in a way they hadn’t been in almost eight years._ _

__Damian helped him get suited up, and if Dick could be certain it were a joke, he’d quip about a duel to the death, but as it was, he wondered if he’d kept up well enough on swordfighting. Normally he had Damian to take care of that for him, so he’d gotten soft about it._ _

__Today, if he _had_ to fight with blades, he doubted he’d be able to toss Damian a sword and let him go at it._ _

__He wouldn’t want to, anyway. If it really was a duel over Damian’s…. honor he was fighting, it would probably result in someone’s death, and Damian had enough blood on his hands without _Dick_ asking him to kill._ _

__There was a soft chime in the cabin as the plane began its descent, and Dick hauled Damian in for a kiss, which Damian kept gentle and warm, and Dick thought about how truly _vulnerable_ Damian was under the arrogance and murder, and he didn’t press for anything but the familiar contact, the warmth of a beloved body against his chest, the softness of skin against his fingertips._ _

__“Whatever happens,” Dick said. “If things go bad, you get away, okay?”_ _

__“No,” Damian replied, and well. That was fair enough, wasn’t it?_ _

__They were met on the tarmac by an army of ninjas, and Dick lost his breath from the way the dry, clean heat impacted him as he stepped out of the plane. Damian was apparently unmoved by any of this, striding boldly forward, head high and spine straight. He ignored the entourage, and opened the door of a waiting armored car to hand Dick inside._ _

__The armor in the clothing they’d been provided didn’t feel like it was enough, anymore. Damian didn’t let his hand linger on Dick’s any longer than was necessary, and when they were in the car, he arranged himself in a familiar meditative pose, and Dick counted heartbeats as the car drove them further away into the desert._ _

__They arrived at a building of palatial opulence, and it startled Dick to realize that even if Damian hadn’t grown up _here_ , he’d grown up in a place that was very like here. It was chilling despite the overwhelming heat, because somehow he’d managed to forget that Damian hadn’t come from the streets like Jason or Stephanie, or even from wealth like Tim had, but that he came from the seat of an empire older than any legacy any of the rest of them had, even Bruce._ _

__As they walked through colonnades and past priceless mosaics depicting bloody battles, Damian drew more and more of himself under his skin, until he was not like the person Dick loved more than breath or blood, or even like the angry, grieving, hopeless boy he’d taken a chance on trusting, but most like the voiceless, faceless ninjas who were flanking them at either side._ _

__It occurred to Dick that he should have, at some point, resisted this, but with Damian unresisting, he hadn’t thought to. Damian was all fight, so his obedience to this supposed summons had been contagious._ _

__When they finally arrived, it was to a quiet room with small, high windows offering the only light; there were cushions scattered, and priceless carpets layered, and Talia sat primly in one corner, a small smirk at the corners of her lips. She looked exactly as Dick remembered her, and Damian bowed slightly._ _

__“Mother,” he said._ _

__“Talia,” Dick echoed. “Thank you for the invitation. You could have emailed it though; I’m sure we would have said yes.”_ _

__Talia pouted with perfect sincerity, and Dick smiled back as a reflex. Damian had almost the exact same expression when he was only feigning upset. “And ruin the surprise? I shouldn’t think so,” she said. “Have a seat, both of you. I want to catch up.”_ _

__Damian straightened his spine impossibly more, and Dick sat at Talia’s left, leaving the place of honor for Damian._ _

__“So,” Talia said softly, ignoring the fact that her son was twitching with terror and ready to draw steel. “You’re fucking Damian.”_ _

__Dick shrugged and took a sip of the cool, sweet tea in its ceramic cup. “Sometimes,” he replied. “I prefer to call it lovemaking, really. Ask Damian, he hates it when I call it that.”_ _

__“Just as sentimental as Bruce was,” Talia said fondly, in tones normally reserved for praising children’s macaroni art. Not that she’d ever done that; Damian was too much of a perfectionist to have had that sort of praise as a little kid._ _

__Dick shrugged. “What can I say, I’m known for it; I once saved the world through the power of love.”_ _

__Damian didn’t even crack a smile, and Talia’s smirk turned into an outright sneer for a bit._ _

__“Really,” she said flatly. “Lovely.”_ _

__“Damian, sit down,” Dick said after he’d had a bite of the food. He didn’t know the name of it, but it was good, and he wondered if Damian missed it the way Dick missed funnel cakes and the sharp smells of frying oil and hay. If he did, he wouldn’t ever let on, because it had been almost ten years and still Dick hadn’t managed to show Damian that sentimentality wasn’t weakness._ _

__“Oh, don’t pressure him,” Talia said. “He’s frightened.”_ _

__The words cut through the air like a whip, and Damian sat as if he were a puppet whose strings had been cut. Dick pretended not to notice the undercurrents of tension as he nudged the cup of tea closer to Damian._ _

__“I have never known Damian to be frightened,” Dick said warmly. He could see the fear though, in the way Damian put the cup to his lips but never drank, in the careful way he handled the knife and cut up his food but never ate it._ _

__Talia smiled warmly. “I’ve always known he was flawed, but he seems to please you well enough.”_ _

__“He’s better for his flaws,” Dick said, because denying Damian his flaws was giving him a burden he would never, ever ask Damian to bear._ _

__“Hmm,” Talia said, lips pursing. “And is this why the detective would not have you, son?” she asked._ _

__Dick had a weird moment where he thought she was referring to Bruce, until he realized she meant Tim. He wanted to laugh, or maybe cry, but he remained unmoving at Talia al Ghul’s left hand._ _

__After the silence stretched long enough that Dick could no longer bear it, he shook his head. “Tim and Damian don’t get along, at all,” he offered. “I doubt it has anything to do with Damian’s supposed flaws.”_ _

__“Tim is clearly the superior choice, then? Even to your eyes?” Talia asked._ _

__Dick bit his lip and hesitated, but in the end he knew he had to say _something_. “Tim’s great, yeah, but I don’t think he’s great _for Damian_ , no.”_ _

__“But you are? A circus boy, of no particular talent?”_ _

__Damian surged up again, and Dick thought for a moment that he might attack his own mother, but something held him back and he simply towered over them, fury in his eyes and his limbs._ _

__If they were on patrol or undercover, Dick would carefully pull Damian out and keep him close until he’d mastered his temper, not because he was a killer, the way the others thought: Damian hadn’t killed, not even accidentally, in years and years. It was simply because this was _Damian_ and he hated himself the most when he couldn’t control his responses._ _

__“Yeah, why not,” Dick said, pretending Damian hadn’t moved. “I love him, after all.”_ _

__It was easy enough for him to say it, and Damian still looked at him like he was insane every time he said it._ _

__“Does he love you?” Talia asked, as if Damian weren’t standing right there, ready to burst._ _

__Dick shrugged. “Yeah,” he said. “He does.”_ _

__Talia smiled at him then, warm and genuine and a little pained, and looked up at Damian as soon as the expression was gone. She spoke to him, a brief burst of roiling syllables that meant nothing to Dick, and he was reminded yet again that Damian had a whole different life from the one he had in Gotham, with its own language and beauty and desperation._ _

__Damian shook his head, and then two assassins came to escort him out._ _

__Once the door had sealed him in alone with Talia, Dick looked back at her. “Is this the part where we duel to the death?” he asked._ _

__“Hardly,” Talia said, shaking back her hair. Without that serene mask of expression, she looked tired and broken the way Damian sometimes did, when it was late and he couldn’t decide who he was supposed to be._ _

__“Good,” Dick said. “I’m pretty sure Damian would be unhappy no matter who won there.”_ _

__“He prefers your company,” Talia said. “He-- he would prefer you win, if there were a duel to the death.”_ _

__“You’re his mother,” Dick said. “That’s important. You _raised_ him,” he added, even though the words tasted bitter in his mouth._ _

__“And I can see what a good job you think I did there,” Talia replied. Dick opened his mouth to reply, and Talia held up a hand to stop him. “No, don’t, I know you, remember? I know that you will find some way to believe the lie you think you need to tell me, and I won’t-- I don’t need your _sympathy_.”_ _

__“What do you need then?” Dick asked._ _

__Talia froze, then arranged her clothes carefully, fidgeting with the folds of her tunic and frowning at her hands._ _

__“So blunt,” she said. “You learned that from _him_.” There was no mistaking who she meant._ _

__Dick shrugged. “Maybe he learned it from me,” Dick said. “Or picked me because of it.” Not that there had been any real picking, with Bruce. He didn’t consciously decide like that, Dick was pretty sure. He just did what he thought was right, and kept on doing it, no matter the cost._ _

__Talia smiled again, and Dick reached for her, wanting nothing more than to offer comfort, but she froze in that particular, careful way Damian always froze when offered unexpected contact._ _

__Dick calmly took the carafe and poured them both more tea instead._ _

__“Do you truly love him?” she asked finally, her voice small and her shoulders hunched in._ _

__“Yes,” Dick replied._ _

__“Why?” she whispered. He wondered if she had meant to ask that at all._ _

__“Because he’s Damian,” Dick replied._ _

__She nodded slowly, thoughtfully, and her finger twitched deliberately this time, and more men came in, and he fought because he was pretty sure he was supposed to fight, not because he particularly wanted to, and they took him away._ _

__“Prove it!” she called out behind him, and Dick groaned and struggled harder for it._ _

__***_ _

__Dick came to, face down on a hard metal surface, completely bound._ _

__“Well this is a new and interesting turn of events,” he said aloud. No one answered him, which was both reassuring and not. At least he knew that Damian wasn’t stuck with him._ _

__On the other hand, he had no idea where Damian was._ _

__He managed to get out of the bindings fairly quickly, and he made his way around the dimly lit room. The metal surface he’d been laying on was a cot that folded up into the wall, and there was a single jagged carving in the indentation it belonged in. He traced it with his fingers a half dozen times before he folded the cot up._ _

__There was blood on the floor, the barest hints of stains where it had been scrubbed from the granite. Some places it was only a little, some a lot, but a great deal had been spilled here through the stone’s life._ _

__The door was locked from the outside, and Dick picked it open, swinging it out into a long, empty hallway._ _

__Dick looked down the hallway in either direction, then at the walls on either side of the door before picking a direction. There had been a tiny carving there, too, less hesitant, more defined to Dick’s fingertips._ _

__At the end of the hallway was a doorway to a tall curving flight of wooden stairs, and more well-scrubbed blood, and he started up them._ _

__***_ _

__“I do have to agree with my daughter,” his grandfather said gently as they watched Dick’s progress through the obstacle course they’d set him. “If you must choose, why not choose Timothy?”_ _

__Damian did not say ‘Because you chose him first’ and he did not say ‘Because he is better than me’ though both statements would have been true. Instead he said, “Grayson chose _me_.”_ _

__His grandfather sighed and shook his head gently. “Such sentimentality,” he whispered sadly. “He won’t survive, you know. He isn’t clever enough, or convicted enough.”_ _

__“He will survive,” Damian said as Dick’s fingers brushed confidently across a carving of Damian’s name on a wall, a carving only _he_ knew was there, if Ra’s’s lack of even a carefully constructed non-reaction was a reliable tell, and Dick followed its implicit direction away from the first of many deadly obstacles._ _

__***_ _

__Over the years, Dick had heard a lot about different niches of the world where secret stashes of knowledge lay. Great libraries housing mysteries and magic and lost knowledge._ _

__He hadn’t ever considered that Damian had _studied_ in those places, and yet, here he was, in a library that had to be larger than Wayne Manor, under a table inscribed with the same carving. He had caught it with his fingertips as he’d rushed past, and he’d stopped and dropped to his knees to take a look. This had been enough for him to miss being spitted by a large spike that had burst from the floor a few paces ahead of him, and now he was trying to decide what to do next._ _

__Go high, he thought, because his strength was heights, but he didn’t know if the shelves full of priceless knowledge could support his weight._ _

__But he did know the floor was booby trapped, and he had really only two choices, so he used the table as a jumping-off point, and he landed lightly on top of the nearest shelf. From there, he could see the way the lights flickered around the indentations of pressure plates in the floor, and he thought that the tops of the shelves was definitely safer than the floor._ _

__***_ _

__Beyond the library, he found more stairs, but no carved symbols, and as soon as the library door clicked shut behind him he was drenched in darkness so inky black he could hardly breathe…_ _

__Except that after he managed to slow his heart, he realized the dim light from the library was seeping through the cracks at the edge of the door, and he forced himself to calm down and _think_. He belonged to the night, a little darkness had never hurt anyone, and he needed to continue this bizarre gauntlet until he could figure out a way out and get Damian and…_ _

__Trek across untold miles of desert to safety? So the plan needed a little refinement, he thought, so what? It was still better than blind panic._ _

__There was no handle on the door to let him back into the library, so he planted his left hand firmly on the wall and continued forward._ _

__***_ _

__Damian very carefully did not react when Dick decided to follow the left wall. It was inevitable that he would eventually miss one of the little reminders Damian had left for himself, for any number of reasons; they were lower than any adult human was prone to looking or touching, they were inexpertly crafted, some were bound to have been discovered and sanded smooth._ _

__The thing was, he’d always expected to need them for himself; if he had to escape in a hurry, or if the opposite were true, and he had to _return_. He’d been trained, after all, to anticipate every eventuality._ _

__He stood up abruptly, and watched the ripple as his grandfather’s assassins tensed, prepared for him to do something rash. He smiled pleasantly at them and paced around, waiting…_ _

__When the trap sprang, Damian knew he’d flinched, but it didn’t matter. Dick had somehow sensed the trap, heard it or felt it or something, and had flipped up into a somersault, staying airborne longer than any human had a right to without tools and lines or a meta gene, and his mother said “That damned circus boy,” and Damian smiled to hear it._ _

__***_ _

__It took far too long for Dick to get his nerve back after that mechanical trap had almost sprung on him, and he pressed firmly against the wall, waiting for the adrenaline to filter through his system, so he was alert but not jittery._ _

__He probably should have doubled back, tried to find more of the carvings, but he didn’t; he pressed onward until he hit a dead end in the hall, and then he felt at the wall hoping for a trick latch or some kind of mechanism to let him out._ _

__What he found was a handhold. Somehow, the idea of ascending a stone wall in pitch darkness at the end of a booby trapped corridor didn’t appeal as much as it could have, but he could take a hint, and he hauled himself up._ _

__Footholds were almost impossible to find in the dark, and he’d probably only gotten up a couple of feet when icy water started pouring down from above him, and he gasped and tucked his face down so it wouldn’t run up his nose-- it wasn’t like looking up had been doing him a ton of good anyway, given the fact that it was still completely dark._ _

__The handholds got slick and slippery, but he’d climbed worse, for stupider reasons than “I allowed myself and Damian to get kidnapped by ninjas and now I have to escape.”_ _

__***_ _

__“Get them ready,” his grandfather said, and Damian glanced up at him, feigning boredom._ _

__“Really. Grandfather?” Damian asked. “You’re still going to make him fight?”_ _

__“You mastered this course on your eighth birthday, Damian,” his mother said gently. “Are you saying the one you chose is less capable than an eight year old _child_?” _ _

__Damian clenched his fists._ _

__“He won’t fight,” Damian said._ _

__“He will if he wants to live,” his mother replied. “Even your father fought, despite his misgivings.”_ _

__Damian glanced sharply at her, but her expression was serene, and he wondered-- he wondered how she had felt, watching his father fight for his life against the League’s best._ _

__He wondered if Dick would succeed as Batman must have, for Damian to even exist, or if Damian would have to watch him fall._ _

__***_ _

__Dick finally pulled himself up onto a flat surface, chilled to the bone and shaking with it, exhausted in a way he hadn’t been in years, not since he’d been trying to be Batman and protect Damian from himself. Not since he’d realized he couldn’t actually be all things to all people, and had adjusted his life accordingly._ _

__(He’d since learned that it was more satisfying to be all things to one person, anyway.)_ _

__The room he entered flooded abruptly with light, and Dick was faced with Ra’s al Ghul and Talia at his right hand, and at his left two masked men flanking Damian who was just as coolly expressionless as the others, but he was on his feet and unbound, which meant-- Dick looked up and spotted the crossbowmen in the rafters of the enormous salle and sighed._ _

__Damian was far more precious about Dick’s life than his own, and it was sometimes quite inconvenient, really._ _

__“Choose your weapon, Nightwing,” Ra’s said, gesturing at the racks of varied melee weapons to his left, and Dick considered, for a second, abandoning this farce and running for Damian, but Damian would probably never forgive him if he got himself stuck full of crossbow bolts, and _Bruce_ would never forgive Damian when Damian inevitably decided to just dunk Dick in the nearest Lazarus Pit to revive him, and Dick would never forgive Bruce for not forgiving Damian for being _exactly like Bruce_ , and it would just be a whole mess of anger and recrimination, so he took up escrima and made a saucy ‘get on with it’ gesture in Ra’s’s direction._ _

__Ra’s raised a single aristocratic eyebrow in Dick’s general direction, and Talia said, “Surely you’ll want a blade--” only for Ra’s to cut her off._ _

__“He has made his selection, daughter, allow him his morals.”_ _

__Dick calmly stretched out his muscles and shook loose his wrists and elbows. It wasn’t about morals, it was about confidence. If he could be sure Damian would take up the sword if he tossed it to him, he would have grabbed that longest katana from the rack in a heartbeat, but Damian’s expression was unreadable, so he had to trust his own skill, and trust that Damian had something more subtle brewing._ _

__He _had_ to._ _

__***_ _

__Damian’s whole body ached to help Dick, but he couldn’t, not with the his Grandfather’s eyes fastened to the action, pleasure seeping into the edges of his expression, not with the tremors of hope and despair that kept flicking through his mother’s posture._ _

__Not with the unspoken threat that should he interfere, Dick would die._ _

__(Damian wasn’t sure Dick wouldn’t die _without_ his interference. He’d shed so much blood in this room that he couldn’t… he _had_ to believe they wouldn’t kill Dick. He couldn’t stand here and simply _watch_ otherwise.)_ _

__The thing about Dick was that while he _could_ fight, he turned every movement into art. Where Damian had been taught that every gesture he made that wasn’t a killing blow was pointless and useless and grounds for punishment, Dick had been taught to perform before he’d been taught to fight at all, and as such, watching him carefully disarm and disable his Grandfather’s best men was like watching the sort of fights he was used to mocking in movies, not at all like the sort of fights Damian was used to seeing in this room, was used to _fighting_ in this room._ _

__He could see where Dick was worn down and exhausted, could see a dozen tiny slips in his guard that his grandfather’s best should have seen, should have exploited, and simply didn’t. Damian did not to let his disgust show on his face. It was _good_ that they weren’t winning, not embarrassing._ _

__Nine fighters, Dick subdued. Nine, and then they were jerking Damian back and away, and more crossbowmen lined the rafters, and he was given a hood and a face mask, and Damian glared at his mother and his grandfather, and as one, every crossbow in the room clicked as bolts were readied._ _

__“Whatever happens next,” his mother said in a low murmur meant for his ears only, “Is meant to be. I swear it.” She pressed the hilt of his sword into his hand (and it was _his_ sword, the length exactly what he preferred, the balance hilt-heavy enough to feel comfortable in his grip.)_ _

__Damian stepped out to face his lover, and Dick laughed._ _

__***_ _

__“Okay, so this is utterly and completely ridiculous,” Dick said, staring at Damian. He could only see his eyes with the mask they’d put on him, but there were only two such pairs of eyes in the whole world, and Bruce was not that slender, not that _young_._ _

__He dropped his weapons and stood, relaxed, and Damian didn’t move, not even when a crossbow bolt thudded into his shoulder._ _

__Dick narrowed his eyes. “You’re really going to kill him if I refuse to fight? It seems unlikely. I mean, all of this, to prove _my_ worthiness of his… I don’t know, hand in marriage? and you think I believe you’ll kill him if I don’t fight him?”_ _

__Another bolt, a few inches below the first one, and Damian’s eyes were wider from the pain, but his stance was unmoving._ _

__Dick bit his lip to keep from doing something really stupid._ _

__The third one hit Damian’s thigh, and he rocked with the impact, and Talia let out a tiny noise of distress._ _

__“Collect your weapons,” Ra’s intoned, and Dick thought ‘fuck everything,’ and tackled Damian to the floor._ _

__Damian was a little bigger than him in every direction, but he had curled on impact and the next crossbow bolt hit the stone floor just beside their heads, and Dick turned to glare at Ra’s._ _

__“No,” he said._ _

__He was bleeding, he thought, a cut searing his cheek and down his arm, and he realized after a moment’s dazed confusion that it was from Damian’s sword._ _

__That made sense. Okay._ _

__Ra’s was laughing, and Talia was kneeling over them, demanding he roll over and let her look, and Dick thought that was either the most fantastic idea ever, or a really stupid idea, but he hurt so he rolled off of Damian, and Talia was touching the cut on _his_ cheek, and Dick brushed her hands away._ _

__“Help _him_ ,” he hissed. “Your _son_.”_ _

__Talia blinked down at him, and she smiled another genuine smile, a smile of terror and self-loathing and pain, and said, “I can’t.”_ _

__Dick groaned and propped himself up on an elbow. More faceless ninjas were surrounding them, and one had a first aid kit, gauze and pressure bandages already in his hands, and Dick carefully pulled the mask from Damian’s face while the other man pulled the bolts from Damian’s flesh and started wrapping the wounds up._ _

__“You will both be taken to a suite to recover,” Ra’s said._ _

__“No,” Dick said furiously. “No, we’re going home.”_ _

__Damian blinked at him, and Dick pressed a careful kiss to his forehead, like this was a nightmare he could protect him from, and once the bandaging was secured and the ninja had stepped away, he scooped Damian into his arms and stood._ _

__He could tell that had surprised Ra’s, because Damian had learned to mask his expressions from these people, and he knew what surprise looked like on his lover._ _

__“Take the sword,” Ra’s said dismissively. “It is his birthday, after all.”_ _


End file.
